A British Point of View: RAW and Smackdown Diaries Part 2

RAW emanated from Manchester, England this evening with a pretty solid show.

Firstly I will apologise in advance in case there is any bad grammar or spellings in this article as I’m now writing this in the early hours of the morning.

When you watch WWE live events in person you always feel that the night has been good and that’s what I feel with RAW but unfortunately I think when I watch it back on TV tomorrow I’ll notice it to be a mediocre RAW with very little substance.

I’ll run you through the events of the evening but first I must warn you that there are SPOILERS involved so if you haven’t had chance to watch RAW yet or are currently in the process then please do not read any further until you have done so.

Firstly the night got off to a start with Superstars. Superstars is a show which is based purely on wrestling matches and doesn’t use storylines often.

The first match of the night was William Regal against Alex Riley. Now the match was fairly solid and was always a safe bet when you put an Englishman in front of his home crowd for the opening matchup. William Regal easily picks up the win.

Next we had Zack Ryder against Yoshi Tatsu. I haven’t seen Yoshi in a long time but he is still wearing that babyface gimmick down. It could be interesting to see him possibly build more personality onto his on screen character but I guess you have to be on TV in the first place, right? Yoshi picks up the win in this one and proves that there is no end to Zack Ryder’s jobbing as of late.

The next match was Ezikiel Jackson against Primo Colon. Ezikiel made short work of Primo and looked as impressive as ever.

Now we move on to RAW. If you were wondering why there were no pyro at the start of RAW it was because they used pyro on the start of Superstars. The show kicks off with John Cena glorifying Wade Barrett and introducing him to the ring. Barrett correctly plays on the home crowd and has a muscle flexing session by explaining his power to John Cena and David Otunga for their failed efforts from the previous week.

Orton proceeds to come out and explain that he will still be champion and Barrett is spending too much time worrying about Cena and not himself.

The lights flicker and Cole takes the hot spot gaining a lot of heat from the crowd (Yes I nearly threw my damn phone at him and even my drink but I was high up and I didn’t to waste my beer!)

Cole tells us that there will be a 10 man tag team match involving Nexus against Orton and 4 men of the GM’s choosing.

Then we get to the first match of RAW and its a 6 diva tag team match where all participants are wearing football/soccer kits. Now Eve and the Bella’s come out wearing Manchester United kits which is perfectly fine seeing as were in Manchester. But then Maryse, Alicia Fox and Snuka come out wearing Liverpool shirts, why? Liverpool are not United’s main rival, why not have them come out in Manchester City shirts? They are the clubs rival and are currently the richest club in the world. Seemed very odd but none the less a typical diva matchup. Eve and the Bellas come our victorious.

The second match had The Hart Dynasty continue in their losing ways against The Uzo brothers, again another match that wasn’t groundbreaking.

Goldust also faced Ted Dibiase which was a bland affair until Aksana came out and ran off with the Million Dollar Championship, Goldust pinned DiBiase during the confusion.

John Cena then faced David Otunga in which John Cena pretty much dominated and forced Otunga to tap out.

After the match concluded Wade Barrett appeared in a backstage segment telling Otunga he had to appear on Smackdown and beat Edge or he was finished with the Nexus.

Then came the real highlight of the show. Santino Marella came to the ring in a suit with Vladimir Koslov and arranged a tea party with Sheamus to make friends with him after his recent losses. This segment was funny and showed how Marella can create humour even within PG restrictions.

The segment eventually ended up with a match between Sheamus and Marella in which Marella got DQ’ed and then Morrison saved his bacon afterwards.

Then the main event came with a massive 10 man tag team match. Orton’s partners were R-Truth, Daniel Bryan, The Miz and Mark Henry. This was a well worked main event and I really enjoyed it. Bryan had a fantastic showing and Orton managed to keep the interest in him and Barrett facing each other.

Barrett ended up winning this one because Miz turned his back on Orton during the match using his briefcase to knock out the champion.

Overall the show was good but it was a shame that the two most entertaining segments appeared in the last 40 minutes. Some may say that it was mediocre but I have to say that the Marella segment was class and should be watched by all.

The biggest pops from the crowd were obviously Orton, Cena, Barrett and Marella but it’ll be interesting to see if Smackdown displays a more consistent show tomorrow night.

Now I must go and try to get some sleep. I suspect most of you will be watching RAW right now and I would love to hear from you.